The News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 25, 1912

The News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

—Francis Joseph, the aged emperor of Austria-Hungary, is reported to be seriously ill.

—The libraries of the United States received $3,364,822 in gifts during 1911, of which Andrew Carnegie provided all but one million.

—Miss Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross Society, died at her home, near Washington, D. C., on April 12. She was ninety-one years of age.

—Antiforeign riots have broken out in the Chinese province of Shen-si, where many Mohammedans have been massacred, according to a news agency despatch from Tientsin.

—Congress has made an appropriation of $30,000 for the establishment of a children's bureau. This organization will investigate child labor, the birth-rate, infant mortality, etc.

—Beginning June 1, the hours of the day will be numbered from one to twenty-four, from midnight to midnight, on all French railways and in the postal and telegraph service. The new arrangement is intended to replace A. M. and P. M. designations.

—The death of Senator Robert L. Taylor, of Tennessee, removes from the United States Congress one of the most genial and popular members. Three times he had served his State as governor. He had also represented it in both houses of Congress.

—The proposed amendment to the Maine constitution to allow local option on the question of permitting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in all the cities and in such towns as accept the provisions of the resolve was defeated in the State legislature on March 23.

—The latest census of India gives a population of 315,000,000. The Christian growth is shown by the following figures: In 1881 there were 1,862,634 Christians; 1891, 2,284,380; 1901, 2,923,241; 1911, 3,876,196. In the native states of India the advance has been relatively greater than in districts where the British exercise complete governmental powers.

—The report of the National Highways Protective Society of accidents due to vehicular traffic in New York City for the three months ending March 31, 1912, shows that 91 persons were killed and 506 injured. Thirty-one of those killed were children under sixteen years of age. During the corresponding months of 1911, 54 persons were killed and 307 injured.

—By a telegram from St. Petersburg, Russia, it is learned that the entire population of a small fishing village in Nova Zembla has died of starvation. The cemetery is full, showing that the few dead persons who were found uninterred had buried those who died first. The vessel which was to take food supplies to the village was held fast by the ice for months, and when it got through, the people for whom the food was destined were dead.

—After a legal battle with the government, lasting ten years, the Chicago packers have been acquitted of violating the criminal clause of the Sherman Antitrust Law.

—The American Bible Society reports that with the cooperation of the Arabian Mission of the Reform Church it distributed 4,550 copies of the Scriptures in southeast Arabia last year.

—Elite society is rejoicing over the advent of the stepless street-car, built to suit the hobble skirt. The floor of the car is only ten inches above the street, and the door is even closer to the ground.

—The government is planning a 30,000-ton battleship, which will be the largest in the world. It has been suggested that its decks be covered with armor thick enough to resist bombs dropped from an aeroplane.

—Dr. Harvey W. Wiley has resigned as chief chemist and pure food specialist of the Department of Agriculture, after twenty-nine years of service for the government, because he feels that his hands are tied in his fight for the enforcement of the pure food law.

—A serious wreck occurred near Poughkeepsie, N. Y., on the morning of March 13, when a section of the New York Central Twentieth Century Limited struck a broken rail, and five cars plunged down an embankment onto the ice-covered Hudson River. Thirteen persons were injured.

—As a result of the continuance of the coal strike in Great Britain, millions are facing starvation. Fifty thousand soup kitchens are said to be in operation in north Wales. The infant mortality among the strikers' families is appalling. Few of the working class have money to purchase milk, and in thousands of homes gruel made from meal furnished by the town authorities is the only nourishment obtainable.

—Nearly 7,000 textile operatives who went on strike at Lawrence, Mass., ten weeks ago, have voted to accept the new wage scale and the conditions of work offered by the American Woolen Mills, the Kunhardt Worsted Mills, and the Atlantic Cotton Mills. The strike will be continued against eight of the concerns of the city, but it is believed that all except about 3,500 have gone or will go back to their work on the new terms.

—After Amundsen reached the south pole, Englishmen eagerly awaited news from Captain Scott, who was also seeking the pole. They hoped it might prove that Scott had reached it first. But his ship, the “Terra Nova,” has returned to New Zealand, bringing the news that on January 3, three weeks after Amundsen reached the pole, Captain Scott was still 150 miles from it. Captain Scott remains in the Antarctic for another winter.

—There are 135 cement establishments in the United States. Their average capital is $1,388,000, and the total capital is more than $187,000,000. The mills buy the raw material for $29,000,000, grind it and mix it, and then sell the product for $63,000,000. They pay out $19,000,000 in wages, and charge off $8,000,000 to miscellaneous expenses. There are almost 27,000 employees. The balance, $7,000,000, is supposed to be a profit—nearly twenty-five per cent.